Dead Men Tell No Tales
by Gamebird
Summary: Post TLJ, Poe died during an attack on a Starkiller prototype. He's brought back from the dead by Hux using some unknown medical technology of the First Order. It takes Poe a long time to work out why Hux would do something so seemingly out of character as to save his life, over and over again.


**Title:** Dead Men Tell No Tales  
 **Characters:** Poe Dameron, Armitage Hux, brief later appearances by other characters  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Warnings:** References to character death (no main characters die in the course of the story). Death of unnamed original characters. Some gore, much blood. Medical treatment. Main character maiming (does not happen in the course of the story).  
 **Setting:** Some time after The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren is ousted by Hux and the First Order retreats to an unstable, abandoned Starkiller prototype. The Resistance attacked it. Things turned out badly. This story follows that initial setup.  
 **Summary:** Poe is brought back from the dead by Hux using some unknown medical technology of the First Order. It takes Poe a long time to work out why Hux would do something so seemingly out of character as to save his life, over and over again.

* * *

Everything was blurry when Poe woke. His body hurt all over, but most sharply on his right foot. His throat was dry, itchy, and it was painful to swallow. He felt like he'd been screaming. He was slick with sweat and felt like he was burning up from the inside. His head was throbbing so much he could barely think. He had the impression this condition had been going on a while, drowned in delirium, but he couldn't achieve enough awareness to be sure. Aside from the medical equipment directly above him, there was a cabinet in grey and black. The color scheme seemed oddly important. He couldn't place it. Everything faded out.

When consciousness returned, his head didn't hurt as much. He recognized the soothing, floating buzz of high dose painkillers, but even so, he still hurt. Something clicked about the colors – he wasn't in a Resistance medbay, or at least not one he was familiar with. He'd been in them to enough to know, usually as a visitor instead of a patient. He felt a cough coming on and tried to raise a hand. It didn't move. He coughed anyway, his throat a spasm of pain, then turned his head at a motion to his side.

A man had stood and moved closer to him, looking at him intently. The eye contact was brief, with the man mainly looking over his face and body in a clinical way. He had a sense this had happened before – he'd stirred and this person had come to check on him, but it was no more than a feeling. Poe stared at him – orange hair, pale skin, black uniform. His aching eyes traveled back to the face. Fine features that were known to him without being familiar. A faint, non-regulation bristle. Hair longer than it should be. The man reached up to adjust a screen on the cabinet above Poe.

Poe finally placed him and croaked out, "Hux?" This captured the man's attention; it was as good as any affirmative answer would have been. Poe continued, "General," there was no rank or insignia on the outfit – it was oddly plain, "General Hux?"

"No longer a general." Hux went back to looking at the screen. "But Hux will do."

"Yeah, right. You staged that coup against Kylo." Poe swallowed roughly around the pain in his throat. He assumed he'd been tortured, although that didn't explain why he felt drugged. He must have forgotten how he got here and what they wanted out of him. The last thing he remembered was an explosion. And before that, the assault on the prototype Starkiller or whatever it was the First Order was calling it. If it had gone up like he remembered in snatches and bits, then he shouldn't have survived.

He looked down at his arms. They had wide, padded straps around the forearms. These were medical restraints. He was in some kind of medservice pod built into the wall. The interior of the lid was studded with sensors and implements he wasn't familiar with other than the respiration unit, but it was fixed open at the moment. He vaguely remembered waking while it was closed. Whatever he was on wasn't a full medbay table, but it also wasn't an interrogation chair. His left arm had a retractable sleeve over it. Inside of that would be tubes feeding into his veins. It was an attachment only made for dire conditions.

When he looked down his body, he saw smears of dried blood here and there on the light undershirt he was wearing and the grey sheet that covered him from belly down. His flight suit was gone. He wasn't sure what he had on his lower half.

 _Medical_ restraints. They were designed to keep a patient from thrashing and hurting themselves, not to keep an aware, oriented, and determined patient from freeing themselves. He could get out of these. He looked up at Hux warily. Hux met his eyes for a second and then tapped the screen above him.

"Why are you being my doctor? Where is everyone else?" Poe asked, his tongue feeling too thick in his mouth. Hux didn't answer, so he tried another question. "Where am I?"

"On a shuttle."

That wasn't helpful. Poe turned his head to look around for himself. On the floor, a short distance away and in front of a sheet-covered mound, was an Abednedo, stripped to small clothes and obviously dead. His skin was mottled, flushed, and showing lividity. His coloration was so bad that it took Poe a moment to recognize him – one of his fellow pilots in Black Squadron. The name tore from his throat, "Threnalli!" Anger forming on his face, he snarled up at Hux. "What did you do to him?"

Hux followed his line of sight, then looked back at Poe grudgingly. "I tried to revive him. Same as I did with you." He moved away, opening a compartment and removing a grey sheet like the one covering Poe. The snarl left Poe's face, replaced by confusion. He watched as Hux shook out the sheet fastidiously and covered the body. Now it matched the mound behind him, letting Poe realize there were more bodies there and not just the one of his friend.

"That's very … respectful of you," Poe said, his voice weak and confused. He hadn't been tortured. He just felt like this … because he'd been dead or so near it as to be the same thing. Revived?

"Now that I have someone alive, I shouldn't be staring at the dead and trying to work out where I went wrong with my life." Hux sighed and finished with the task, turning towards an even more confused Poe. "My apologies for not considering that you might have known him."

It was an odd sentiment coming from the leader of the First Order. "Why were you trying to revive us?"

Hux went on as if Poe had asked something else entirely. "I would have expected the medical programs to be able to handle his physiology, so I have to assume he took damage from the concussive blast before the hypothermia effected him. I'm only guessing as to why they didn't make it. This process is still experimental." His voice sounded tired and dull, resigned maybe. "But you survived it." Poe gave him an intent look, staring at the bristle, then at Hux's hair. It was combed well enough and clean … but it was too long. Like a full inch too long compared to the holos he'd seen of the guy. How long did it take to grow that much hair?

Poe stared at him, then glanced at C'ai Threnalli, Resistance pilot. And several others. They were on a modified First Order shuttle as far as he could tell. It seemed different from the normal layout, but there was enough similar that he believed Hux telling him it was a shuttle. He tried to crane his head to see behind him, where the cockpit should be. There were blaster scorches on the wall, but he couldn't see what he wanted. That much head motion made him dizzy and his neck cramped. "Who's flying this thing?"

Hux moved to a bunk on the other side of the narrow space where he glanced at a datapad on a small table, crowded with tools and electronic parts. Hux frowned at the readout soberly. The bunk behind him was neatly made up, which struck him as consistent at least. He couldn't imagine someone like General Hux not having a tidy bunk.

Closer to Poe was a fold-out support table for the med-cot, usually used for surgical tools. There was a bloody cloth on it and thin medical gloves, also spotted and smeared with blood. The place wasn't messy exactly, but it was thoroughly lived in.

"You're stranded," Poe said. "You need a pilot."

Hux looked up at him with a faint smile. "You're very sharp. I like that. It speaks well of your competency that even half-conscious as you are, you figured that out."

"What is it with you First Order people and needing pilots? Do they not teach you guys how to fly anything?"

Hux continued to peruse the datapad without reaction. He moved a few bits of circuitry to the front of the table, laying them out one after another in sequence.

"Oh," Poe said. "Yeah. If they taught you guys how to fly, you might desert. So, yeah. They don't."

Hux smirked and bobbed his head in amused agreement, but said nothing. He sat down on the bunk and pulled the table in front of him.

"You're going to make me carry the conversation here?" His throat still hurt, but it was getting easier to talk.

"You seem to be doing well enough at it," Hux said. "Please continue. It's been too long since I had another human voice to listen to."

"Fine. I remember the explosion," Poe said with a sigh. "We destroyed the base. It set off a chain reaction or something. It was too fast. We all went. But you survived?" Poe rambled on when Hux only listened. "Obviously, I guess. But you're not in a regular uniform. That's a generic one that you're wearing. It was here in the shuttle? You got yourself in here somehow. But the base is gone. It's been compromised – no containment field. A shuttle has its own life support.

Hux continued assembling a circuit panel as Poe pieced together a possible version of events. "You pulled us in here, a bunch of half-dead survivors. With a tractor beam? Shuttles don't have those. Space walk then? Then you tried to wake us up, one after another until it finally worked. You knew me. You tried to revive an alien before me and I know how the First Order feels about non-humans." He felt tired, like this much talking was draining what little energy he had. But he had to understand what had happened. Poe looked over at the other bodies. "Who are those others?"

Hux put down his work and pushed the table out of the way. He came over to look at the screen over Poe, which was covered with new text and a blinking alert bar on the top. It wasn't a good sign.

"What does that say?" Poe asked, an edge of desperation creeping into his tone.

"It says you are agitated and I should calm you. Or authorize it to sedate you. Which would you prefer?"

"You're giving me a choice?" He relaxed just marginally.

"Yes."

"Don't drug me. Whatever you've already given me – I can feel it."

"Then stop working yourself up." Hux's tone was gentle, another unexpected sign of humanity. "You were the last I tried to revive because you were the last I found who looked intact. You weren't half-dead, either. By all measures, you weren't a 'survivor' at all. Not all the First Order improvements on Imperial tech have concerned weaponry, which we can both be thankful for." He pressed a button on the screen and studied the new readout.

Poe glanced at the cuff on his left arm, but he wouldn't be able to tell if it was pumping sedatives into him or not. "What's it saying now?"

"It suggests I calm you by inquiring as to your needs and meeting them," Hux said. He looked at Poe with a wry smile. "I'm not sure who wrote the script, but I'm supposed to ask if your mouth is dry and you would like a sip of water."

Poe blinked at the idea Hux was going to do things to make him comfortable. "You're serious?"

"Yes." After a pause, Hux added, "This isn't the sort of thing I joke about."

"You tell jokes?"

"Not about this. My sense of humor is admittedly atrophied, but I do have one. Are you going to answer my question or should I move on?"

"Yeah, my mouth is dry." His throat was parched, which was undoubtedly part of the reason it hurt.

Hux walked off in the direction of Poe's feet, so Poe got to look over them and watch while Hux retrieved a cup, water, and a straw from a different cabinet. As he came back, Poe said, "My feet aren't the same size. And one of them hurts. The other feels very weird."

Hux sighed, which made Poe's stomach lurch. "Drink." He put the straw in reach of Poe's lips. Poe sipped, keeping the straw between his lips so Hux wouldn't pull the cup away. He took several more pulls at it, interspersed with pauses, before letting go. It tasted fantastic. Hux set the cup on the tray next to the gloves. "Your right foot is gone at the ankle. You've lost toes on the left."

Poe felt the air leave him, but considering he wasn't dead, losing a foot was … He still felt unwhole. Robbed. "How did that happen?"

"I don't know." Hux's lips were pressed together.

"What, did my foot just fall off?" Poe said with sudden anger. He repeated himself with emphasis: "How did that happen?"

"I know _how_ it happened," Hux said crossly, glancing at the monitor above him. "I cut your foot off before the accelerated decay could contaminate the rest of your body. If I had done it as promptly as I should have, you would have only lost toes as you did on the left. But I did not!"

Poe stared at him. " _Why_ not?" His voice was tight.

"Because … I didn't want to cut off pieces from a … a person. It's amusing in fantasy, but stomach-churning in reality." He breathed out heavily. "Not doing it causes a cascade failure of your system and you die. Or at least such appears to be the case from the very small sample size I have had to work with." He waved in the direction of the corpses. "You survived. If you're unhappy about that, I can try to find a new patient."

Poe grimaced at him, stiffening his body and then relaxing when he felt a dull ache go up his spine. He felt dizzy even lying down. He let his eyes slide to half shut and panted.

"I'm not a proper doctor," Hux said, "but I'm pretty sure your blood pressure shouldn't be doing that." Hux put both hands on Poe's upper arm, giving a light squeeze. Very softly, he said, "I would prefer it if you did not die."

"You would, huh?"

"Yes, I would." Hux rubbed at his arm, looking concerned.

Poe looked up at that out-of-place expression, then at the hands on him kneading gently but restlessly. The 'why' was inexplicable and entirely out of character for what little Poe knew of Hux, but the reality was that Hux was not treating him like an enemy. Poe decided not to act like one. He shut his eyes for a long moment and took several deep, intentionally calming breaths.

"So would I," Poe said in a matching tone of voice. For a few long minutes, Poe stared upwards blankly as Hux patiently stood by him. Neither of them did anything except that Hux's touching of him extended up to his shoulder and down to his forearm. Towards the end of it, Poe shifted his eyes to his captor, studying the man's face yet again. It didn't look cruel. Hux was mainly watching what he was doing, where his bare fingers were touching Poe's skin. It felt nice and made it easier to relax.

Poe swallowed and looked down his body, twisting his hands to see them. The machine beeped a warning at him, but he did it anyway. His hands looked fine, thankfully, but he could see that all the exposed parts of his body bore a streaked film of dried, dingy sweat.

"Is everything else … um …?"

Hux snapped out of whatever fugue he seemed to have drifted into. "The rest of you is in good shape. You could be cleaner, but I've had other priorities. It wasn't until a few hours ago I was even sure you'd stabilize. Revivification like this does not always maintain. Or so the incomplete system literature and previous experience tells me." He waved at the screen. "Which is why it's important that you stay calm for a while longer. Everything has dropped back into the expected range. If you have any plans of attacking me or escaping, please put them on hold until your chances of dropping dead in the process are lower."

"I suppose you didn't go to all this trouble to have me kill myself."

"No. I did not." Hux gave him a bland smile. "Do you have any other needs?"

He wasn't hungry, which was probably due to a mix of bodily trauma, digestive shutdown, and whatever nutrients were being pumped into his bloodstream. His right foot, or where it used to be, still hurt, but it was a dull ache that he understood now. He looked down his body. "It feels like something has me down there." He jerked his chin in the direction of his crotch, although he wasn't sure if that would be clear.

Hux appeared to understand. "Yes. That is the case."

"Did the machine do that, or you?"

"I did." Hux looked away with a grimace. "The system said the device is not always accurate in position for a male."

A slow smile creased Poe's face as he imagined Hux having to handle his junk to install whatever urine-catching device was there. "Yeah, the ones in the Resistance aren't very accurate either. It's a standard part of the flight suit, but no one really gets used to it. But if you did it, then it's probably safe for me to use. Thanks for taking such good care of me." He was chuckling softly, but he meant it, too. He didn't want to be lying in his own waste any more than Hux wanted to deal with cleaning it up.

Hux swallowed and blushed, which was even funnier. "There's no point in me reviving you and then cultivating a relationship so antagonistic that you won't fly anything for me."

Poe tried to shrug but couldn't complete the motion. "I'm just surprised you're not trying to torture and intimidate me into it."

"What would I do? Threaten to take off your other foot?" Hux laughed with black humor. "I need you to fly me somewhere safe, not give you incentive to fly us both into the next rock." Hux shot the screen over Poe's form a glance. It wasn't flashing. Hux went over to sit on his bunk. He tilted the datapad to him and frowned at it again.

Poe watched him, then took the opportunity to give everything he could see a close examination. He particularly eye-balled the blaster scoring on the wall near the cockpit. Now that he was looking, he could see a bloodstain in the carpet. An attempt had been made to clean it, but it was easier said than done without appropriate supplies.

Poe announced, "I have a couple other questions." Hux glanced over at him, then turned back to the electronic components gathered on his little work area. He had a battery-operated heat-tip in his hand and had been soldering. Poe asked, "Do you mind if I ask them now, or should I wait?"

"Ask."

"What are you doing?"

"The ship was sabotaged. I'm trying to make it flyable."

"Ah. 'Kay. No hurry for me to get up, then. How'd that happen?"

"As I said – the ship was sabotaged."

"You answer a lot of questions that way?"

"When I don't intend to answer them, yes."

Poe rolled his eyes. "Fine. Do we have communications?"

"We're running silent at the moment."

"That's interesting. You're not sending a distress signal. You don't expect rescue. Why is that? Was this ship sabotaged by your own people?"

Hux smiled as he worked. "You are sharp. That's very appealing."

"Appealing?" Poe blinked at him for the word choice. Hux confirmed his suspicion by blushing again. "Oh. Wow," Poe said, grinning now. His belly clenched in a silent laugh. "Did you listen in on Kylo Ren's interrogation session of me?"

Hux gave him a perplexed look. "Why would you ask that?"

"I told him the First Order needed to rethink their technique. Sounds like you have. A lot." Poe laughed again. "Are these painkillers making me loopy or are you attracted to me?"

Hux went back to working on the circuit assembly he was trying to put together. "What else did you want to know?"

"You're not even going to deny it?"

"Think whatever you want." Hux raised his eyes to Poe for a moment. "A Resistance pilot covered in blood, barely alive, who specifically dislikes me and I may have to rely on to save my life? It's not an attractive look on anyone."

"I'm covered in blood? Is that what that stuff is?" He looked down at himself. If it was blood, it was thin.

"You were. I cleaned most of it earlier, when it seemed likely you'd survive. I'll do it again when I'm done with this."

Poe watched him work for a few long minutes, then said, "You've got a plan. What is it?"

"Get the hyperdrive working. Fly to Terrelia. We go our separate ways."

"Are you defecting?"

Hux did not respond with horror or outrage. He just looked up with a calculating expression. "What did I say to indicate that?"

"You're not having me take you directly to the First Order. And, you know, they screwed up the shuttle."

"Would you? If I asked?"

"You'd kill me otherwise, right? Or you'd tell me you would. I'm not sure I really would fly you to a First Order place, because they'd kill me even if you didn't, but I would have expected you to lead with that. I'm sure it means something that you didn't."

"You won't die if you take me to Terrelia." Hux went back to work.

"I wouldn't die if I took you to the Resistance."

"I would."

"Not if you were defecting," Poe said.

Hux laughed as he positioned a light and put on magnifying glasses to better see the next operation of his work. "I'm sure FN-2187, Kylo Ren, and I would all make bosom buddies."

"You might," Poe said.

"Shush. I need to concentrate for this part."

Poe let silence fall between them. He must have dozed, because the next thing he knew, he was waking up to the sound of a door opening. He tilted his head up to watch as Hux laboriously dragged Threnalli's corpse into the next room. Then he returned for the others.

"Wait," Poe asked. "Who are they? I don't know how many of my friends made it out. Can I see them?"

"Do you have many friends among the First Order?"

"At least one," Poe said, flashing Hux a flirty smile when the man looked at him.

Hux looked discomfited. "You don't know these. And anyway, they're out of uniform. You don't get to see them." With that, Hux dragged off the next. The sheet stayed in place sufficiently that Poe never saw a face but he could make out that the body was as undressed and messy as C'ai's had been. When Hux returned for the next, Poe asked, "Why does being in uniform matter?"

"Their dignity."

"Huh. I didn't know you cared about that stuff."

"Obviously, I care. It's why you're wearing clothes after the equipment was done with you. As far as the bodies go, it was never I was concerned about until I began handling the dead like an undertaker." Hux applied himself to moving the second corpse. Pulling it away dislodged the covering on the last one. It was a woman Poe didn't know, with the sort of short haircut that was normal for the Order as far as Poe knew. Long ones didn't work when you wore helmets all day.

Hux took out the third body and shut the door behind him. Poe was drifting off to sleep again when he heard the cycling of the airlock. The door reopened and Hux came in. He stretched his back with a grimace and scowled at the stains on the floor where the bodies had been. He sighed and picked up the cloth from the tray near Poe and went to wash it out in the same sink he'd gotten water from before.

"Why hadn't you removed them earlier?" Poe asked. "Also, how long were they there? How bad does this room smell? How bad do _I_ smell?" He supposed he should be thankful his sinus system seemed very messed up at the moment. He couldn't smell anything.

"I didn't remove them because they are heavy and I hadn't given it much thought until I had another living person sharing space. You're the worst-smelling thing in here at the moment. That's why I'm trying to get you clean." He moved to Poe's side and showed him the cloth as though he needed to see it, then began to wash his face, starting with the forehead.

"Oh. That's why, huh? You're not just over here while I'm tied down, touching my face tenderly and commenting on how I smell?" Poe smiled charmingly and gave Hux bedroom eyes. "Not that I mind."

Hux rolled his eyes but kept right on doing what he was doing. "You probably should. You never know what awful thing I might do next if you keep looking at me like that."

"You never know – I might like it."

Hux gave him an amused look, which Poe was glad to see.

"Normally," Poe said, "getting people to see me as a human being is my best chance at getting good treatment. I don't know what to do with someone already being this nice."

Hux snorted softly. "I know a few things you could do with it." He interrupted the cleaning to give Poe a moment of uninterrupted eye contact. Poe raised his brows in response and held his breath. It wasn't an encouraging look – only questioning Hux's intentions. Hux looked away and went back to washing Poe's temples. "Most likely, this is a sign of insanity," he grumbled.

Poe smirked up at the man. "You've got me tied down and helpless and you're not going to take advantage? That's terrific, Hux. I really appreciate that." His voice was warm. "You seem sane to me. Except, you know, the part about leaving dead bodies around. Just between you and me, that's a little crazy."

"I'm not going to explain myself." He moved to Poe's cheeks and across his nose. It was intimate and strange, but Poe wasn't unwelcoming to it. Just surprised Hux was treating him well at all.

After a few moments of watching Hux act completely unlike what Poe would have expected of a First Order general, he asked, "I heard the airlock cycle. So we're floating in space, huh? How are we doing on supplies? Like water, food … air?"

"Food and water survives the vacuum of space without a problem. They were among my first priorities. The only thing higher was making this shuttle habitable. The recycling system seems to be working appropriately. So as long as I don't vent too much air, such as by shoving bodies out an airlock each time I end up with a new one, we're fine."

"That wasn't the first time you had to shove bodies out the airlock?"

"No." Hux wiped behind Poe's ears and then in them. The cloth came away surprisingly dirty.

"I bled from my ears?" Poe asked. "That's not good."

"It was very 'not good'. All of it." Hux looked tired.

"I still don't understand why you're the one giving me medical care. Where's everyone else, Hux? Are they _all_ dead?"

Hux looked at the cloth and folded it over to a cleaner part. He said nothing.

Poe sighed. "I strongly suspect you killed everyone else, which makes no sense at all. Why would you kill your own people? Why would they try to kill you? Why would they rescue you and _then_ try to kill you?"

"As I said – I'm not going to explain myself. Not to you. Not to anyone. I have acted as-," his voice cracked. Hux shook his head and didn't finish his statement.

Poe gave him a long, observant look, then said, "Okay. I'll talk about something else, something easier. The air recycling system is fine because you fixed it, right?"

"Yes."

"I thought you were a general, not a technician."

Hux jerked his head in the direction of the workstation he'd set up behind him. "What I am is smart enough to follow instructions. Most shuttles come with a service manual. This one as well. I had a life before my promotion, a significant portion of which involved building Starkiller Base. There's no way to understand such a thing without being hands-on. Lift your head."

Poe did and Hux cleaned the back of his neck, then the front. Poe noticed he still had his necklace, which must have been an intentional choice for Hux to leave it with him. Poe nodded at the cloth. "Why did I bleed so much? I mean, sure my extremities are messed up, but what happened to me?"

"It's something about the revivification process or having been frozen to death. There's a lot of cell breakage. Your system has to purge it somehow and for whatever reason, it mainly goes through the skin." Hux made a perplexed shrug. "It happened on the others, too. It's grotesque."

Poe nodded. That explained the discoloration on C'ai. "Did they … wake up? You said that sometimes it works at first, but then they die."

Hux pressed his lips together and finished wiping down Poe's upper right arm. "I'm going to release your arm and clean the rest of it. Please do not assault me or attempt to disengage your left arm."

"Okay."

Hux looked at him levelly for a long moment, then went to his workstation and returned with a pointed metal instrument. It was some kind of probe or pick, sharp enough to poke messy holes in unprotected flesh. He set it on the far end of the tray where it would be out of reach of Poe's arm once released, but Hux could probably get to it.

"That's not necessary," Poe said softly. "If it's just you and me, buddy, then you're going to have to trust me at some point anyway."

Hux paused with his hand on the strap. "We're not at that point yet." He undid the restraint.

"Hang on," Poe said. "Can I stretch?"

"Yes." Hux stepped back, taking his tool with him. Poe rolled his shoulder and flexed the joints along his arm. After a moment of observation, Hux went to the sink to rinse out the cloth.

It gave Poe the opportunity to feel over his face and run his hand through his hair (which was sticky, unclean, and now his hand had flakes of dried blood on it). He grimaced at that and decided to stay focused on being grateful he was even alive. He looked at the cuff on his left arm and touched it.

"Two," Hux said, returning to glare at him and getting his attention. "Two of them woke up and died before stabilizing, although neither of them made it far enough to indicate they had coherent thoughts. As you have observed, I am not a proper doctor. I don't know enough about how this works to know the limits of it. All I can do is follow the instructions. Do _not_ interfere with the process. The screen will indicate when it is finished." He glanced up at the screen in question. "Or at least I believe it will."

"'Kay." Poe accepted that. Apologetically, he showed Hux the flakes on his right hand. "My hair's dirty."

"Yes, you're filthy." Hux set the probe back on the end of the tray and cleaned Poe's hand. "When you can stand up safely … or, rather, when you can be moved, there's a refresher you can use." Hux scrubbed down Poe's right forearm. Poe wanted to point out he could do it himself if Hux was willing to release him from the restraints, but he couldn't actually clean his right arm with his left immobilized. He could do his face … which Hux had done first. Poe decided to just go with it for the time being.

"Got another question for you," Poe said. "When you found me, I must have still been in my ship, right?"

"Yes."

"There was a BB droid unit in it. Did you, uh, see it?"

"No."

Poe sighed. "Is there any chance it's functional?"

"All electronics were destroyed, even shielded ones."

"What?" He felt the loss of BB-8 as acutely as he had of Threnalli. New text showed on the screen over his bed and the bar at the top was flashing again.

Hux glanced at it. He put a hand on Poe's shoulder and gripped his hand with the other. "It's how the machine worked – the one you attacked and destroyed. When it was destabilized … that was a consequence. Everything died."

"How are you alive? Where did this shuttle come from then?"

Hux sighed softly and looked away, his lips pressing together tightly. He released Poe's hand and moved away to lift up the sheet and look at Poe's feet. Poe couldn't see what he was looking at, but Hux set the sheet back down without comment or cleaning anything. He glanced grimly at the still-blinking bar and then at Poe.

Poe said, "I can see you're hiding something important. If I die then it doesn't matter what you've told me." When Hux still didn't answer, he went on with, "How about just one of those two questions, okay? I'm going to take a guess on which one's less important than the other and ask you the easier of them. How are you alive?"

Hux pressed his lips together and gave Poe an irritated look, but he answered. "There is an area near the core of the hyperbeam projection machine where the fields cancel one another out. I was there, attempting to operate it manually, after your barrage destroyed the primary control mechanisms. When the blast happened, it was as though I was in the eye of the storm. There was no concussive damage in that area."

"You were alone?"

"No."

"But you are now?"

"Yes."

Poe swallowed. For lack of anything better to do, he looked up at the tilted bit of screen which continued to flash ominously. At least he didn't feel nearly as messed up as he had earlier. "I don't have enough information."

The whole shuttle vibrated with a metallic clank, a bang, and then a hollow booming sound. Hux looked around, startled. He turned his head like he was waiting to hear something. A moment later, there was a second booming sound consistent with that of an airlock being forced. Hux's head whipped to look in the direction of the door he'd taken the bodies through. Then he turned and reached across Poe, undoing the strap on his left arm. "Don't pull your arm out of the cuff unless your life depends on it." He reached over for the probe he'd put on the tray earlier and pressed it into Poe's right hand. He stepped away, out of reach.

"You're giving me a weapon?"

Hux looked to him. "If it's the Order, you'll surrender and they'll shoot you if you don't. If it's Resistance, it doesn't matter. They'll free you. If it's neither, you might need it."

"I-"

The door slid open to admit a huge pig-like biped clad in dark armor plating, carrying a blaster of some kind pointed directly at Hux, who stared back at it, unmoving. "Raw!" It called to him, followed by "Grah!" and a jerk downward with the blaster tip. Poe had never seen a Gamorrean that big. He quietly palmed the shiv he'd been given.

"I don't speak that language," Hux said when the boar seemed to expect an answer.

"He's telling you to get down. Like surrender," Poe said.

Hux snorted, which the alien correctly identified as a sound of defiance. He strode into the room and grasped at Hux, who didn't dodge. The creature was at least five times Hux's mass. He didn't resist as he was flung to the floor, where he caught himself on hands and knees. He looked up with a snarl, to which the Gamorrean kicked him in the side. That caused a sound of pain and Hux scuttled back, still on the floor and now holding one arm protectively over his side.

Two humans had followed in the Gamorrean. "Is he armed?" one of them called out, trying to see around the boar. The other trained her blaster on Poe, who tried smiling pleasantly. None of the three were in recognizable uniforms. So this would be the 'neither' option that Hux had mentioned.

"Neh," the Gamorrean said, followed by a series of grunts in his native language that translated as identifying Hux as prey or a food source.

"Not yet," said the one who had spoken Basic before. "Let's find out who they are, first. Identify yourselves, First Order scumbags."

"I am Lieutenant Mitaka," Hux said from the floor, wincing around his words. "That's one of my pilots. PO-482."

Poe was glad he was already smiling. It was fascinating that Hux had claimed him. He'd expected a lie about who Hux was, but not to be recruited as an honorary First Order member in the process. It wasn't like he was wearing anything that contradicted it.

"Is there any reason why we shouldn't kill you both?" the leader asked, getting right to the point.

"I have valuable information about First Order deployments," Hux said. The surprised look Poe shot him would have worked just as well if he were really a TIE pilot.

"Oh really?" the invader said with amusement. "How's that?"

"I'm a communications officer," Hux said, rising to his feet.

The Gamorrean turned to face Poe. "Raw?"

"Yes," Poe answered promptly. The question was a generic greeting; essentially, 'Hey you.'

The boar leaned forward, snout wrinkling and a fine spray of snot emerging as it scented him. The alien grunted several times, informing him that he not only looked like food, but smelled like it. Then it said he was coming with it and grabbed Poe's arm, yanking him from the cot so quickly and easily that Poe had no chance of reacting before it was done.

His left arm wrenched and the cuff broke. Sensors and tubes ripped free. It was a small consolation to discover he still had underwear, but whatever was attached to him for urination did not treat his body kindly as he was torn away from it. Aside from the pain, a wave of nausea swept over him, leaving him woozy and the room spinning. He felt weak.

"No!" Hux yelled in anger. He grabbed at the Gamorrean's hand as though to free Poe. He was so close, he was knocked down by the creature's mere shift in position as he turned to deal with Hux. He was lucky to fall, so that when the boar swung at him clumsily, Hux was on the floor and entirely missed.

The screen next to the Gamorrean's head began flashing red and an alarm went off. Switching his attention from Hux and still holding Poe up by his right arm, the alien smashed his left fist into the screen. The alarm kept going, but the flashing stopped. Hux got to his feet out of easy reach and stayed in a wary crouch.

"Don't kill them," the leader said. The bulk of the Gamorrean was between her and Hux. "What's wrong with your pilot?"

"He was exposed to space. He's not … cured." Hux moved forward again. Glancing at the Gamorrean, who was just staring at him with beady eyes, Hux reached out slowly and put his hand on the bleeding mess that was Poe's inner left arm. He sealed his hand over it firmly. "Try to stay calm," Hux said quietly to Poe.

"Oh sure," Poe answered, still suspended in the air. "Easy-peasy, commander." He was doing his best not to throw up. He wasn't sure what to do with the pointy tool in his right hand since the alien's grip immobilized his entire limb, so he just hung onto it for the moment. They didn't seem keen on searching him for weapons – not even obvious ones.

"What's wrong with his feet?" the leader asked.

The one with her said, "I don't know if they're worth the trouble."

"Maybe not that one," the leader said, pointing at Poe. "Not sure yet about the other."

"He lost a foot to exposure," Hux said, sounding irritable.

"Put them both in the brig," the leader said. "I'll sort it out later after we see what else is on this wreck. I don't want to stay in here any longer than we have to. It smells foul."

The Gamorrean shrugged Poe onto one massive, armored shoulder. Hux struggled to keep his hand on the injury through the change in position. Poe twisted and folded his arm, pulling it away from Hux. "I got it."

"Keep pressure on it," Hux said unnecessarily. Poe tried to nod, but the world was swimming by. A moment later, his head dangling, he lost consciousness.

When Poe came to, he was shivering. His legs were cold. His butt was like ice. He was sitting upright. Someone had hold of his left wrist, keeping it folded across his chest. There was something around his front – a garment. Against his back was a warm human being. Legs were on either side of his, but it was dim here. In front of him was a gate or a barred door with light out in the corridor. The floor was a grating that air moved through. The draft was why he was so cold. The walls were metal.

"Hux?"

"You're awake. Good." Hux was the one holding him. He sounded cheery. "Our circumstances are wonderful in the sense that I wonder if we'll survive. But at least I can talk to you now without sounding unhinged."

Poe chuckled. The motion shifted the garment. Hux adjusted it with his free hand. "Is that your … jacket?" Poe asked.

"It's the overshirt I was wearing, yes. I have a long-sleeved undershirt on."

"You gave me the shirt off your own back? I'm touched."

"I didn't want you to freeze to death. Again. The dead do not make good conversationalists."

"That's still really kind of you. You know, you don't need a pilot anymore." Hux didn't respond, but he didn't let go, reclaim his shirt, or do anything else. They sat quietly for a few moments as Poe shivered and blinked away the haze from his thoughts. He moved his legs, trying to get some blood circulating in them. "I guess I'm not going to die of the revivification, right?"

"I would assume not. If you've made it this far, then you probably only have to worry about the other pressing causes of mortality that we find ourselves confronted by." He released Poe's left wrist. "I'm sure the bleeding has long-since stopped." He moved his hand uneasily for a moment as though not sure what to do with it.

Poe took it and settled it across his belly. "It's okay," Poe told him when Hux froze up. "You need to keep breathing."

Hux gave him a small squeeze and made a valiant effort to wrap his smaller frame around Poe's larger one while keeping the shirt on him. "Of course. You're cold."

"Not so much anymore."

Hux didn't answer.

Poe asked, "Why did you say I was part of the First Order?"

"So they wouldn't divide us."

"You like me that much?"

"That way, ah, that way our stories match."

"Right. That makes sense. Good call." Poe didn't buy that for a second. He rolled his eyes, although Hux couldn't see it. "Do you really intend to sell out your side?"

"All I have to tell them is how to avoid the patrols. It doesn't cost much, militarily speaking. The deployments can be changed later."

"Oh." Poe sagged a little as one of his pet theories was shot down. "And here I thought you really were defecting."

Hux chuckled. "You stubbornly cling to the fantasy that everyone in the Order is like FN-2187, itching for the opportunity to change sides?"

A sliver of hope gleamed anew. Poe cocked his head. "Wait a second … you're not denying it."

"Because it's amusing to me. In our present circumstances, I'll take humor where I can find it."

"Still not denying it, Hugs." There was a long pause. Poe could feel the tension go through Hux. Poe pointedly rephrased Hux's statement. "I'll take humor where I can find it. _Hugs_."

Hux gave a long-suffering sigh and relaxed. "Fine. If I did switch sides, it would only be to follow you back to your base and murder you in your sleep." He didn't sound angry.

"We'd have to be sleeping together, first," Poe said sweetly, starting to enjoy this. "That could be arranged, you know."

"You just woke up. We're already sleeping together, you imbecile."

Poe laughed. The shirt slipped. The chill of the air flashed over his chest and made him regret it. Both of them scrambled to get it back in place. "Oh wow, okay. I didn't know things had already gone that far." Poe tried to think up a comeback. "Was I at least good in bed?"

"You were a bit frigid."

"Frigid?" Poe said in mock outrage.

"Yes, you were so cold and unresponsive. It was very cruel. Next time I should leave you in the restraints."

Poe laughed again. "Oh! Kinky! I like it." Poe ran his hands over the parts of Hux's body he could reach. The shiv Poe had been holding earlier was in his pants pocket and something else was strapped to Hux's right forearm. But he was distracted from exploring that further by the sound of a door opening at the far end of the hall. Heavy footfalls announced the approach of their jailor.

"Keep the shirt," Hux said, getting to his feet and moving to the bars. Poe missed the man's warmth instantly.

Poe turned the shirt and pulled it over one arm. It was too narrow across the shoulders for him to get the other in it. "Hey, skinny guy. Take this. It doesn't fit. Not even close."

With a grimace, Hux took it as the Gamorrean reached the door. Hastily, Hux slipped it on as the door slid up into the ceiling. The Gamorrean grunted several times and made a couple squeals. He gestured down the hall.

Poe said, "Go out in the hall. Then wait. He said both of us. I think he's going-"

Hux had unwisely turned to look at Poe for the translation. The Gamorrean grabbed him by the neck and shoulder, yanked him from the cell, and tossed him down the hallway with the casual ease granted by sheer size. Then the boar lumbered inside where Poe was trying to scramble to his feet, or foot. The thing seized him around the waist and threw him over its shoulder as before. It emerged from the cell. Hux had picked himself up off the floor. The creature pointed. Hux went as directed.

It would have been nice to retain consciousness this time, but Poe didn't have any more control over that than before. He woke to Hux trying to arrange his near-dead weight into a more comfortable position on cold metal floor plating. His nose was bleeding and the side of his face was numb. His neck hurt and he had a dazed feeling, like his whole body was a bell that had just been rung. "Fuck," he mumbled. "Did he drop me on my face?"

"Yes. You probably have a concussion. Just stay on the floor. Here, on your side so you don't suffocate on your own blood."

"You're the best," Poe croaked.

Hux smiled thinly at him. "Hold that thought."

Footsteps rattled the floor plates and Poe saw four people enter. Three were human. The other was Rylothian. Two of the humans were the women they'd seen before on the shuttle. In his review of the world around him, he saw the Gamorrean was still present, off to the side. Hux stood and put himself between Poe and the four who had entered. "That's so weird," Poe muttered, because there was a clearly protective element to Hux's posture.

"Mitaky, was it?"

"Yes," Hux confirmed. His name was going to be mispronounced no matter what it was.

"What do you got for us?"

"You're a salvage operation, right?"

"Sure. Properly licensed. All that stuff. But we don't need to be hauling around human cargo. That would get us in trouble. Help us out here."

"I can give you the First Order's patrol frequency and patterns for the hyperspace jump portals, for those times when you're hauling cargo you don't want inspected."

"Uh-huh." She didn't sound impressed. "What do you get out of it?"

"I want to be dropped off alive, unharmed, with my pilot, on Terrelia."

"He's a half-dead sack of meat. What do you want with him? Does he know something useful?"

"He's First Order property. I'm not authorized to dispose of him."

"Well, I am." She made a gesture at the Gamorrean, who moved towards Poe.

"No!" Hux yelled, backing up so he was standing directly over Poe, one foot on either side of him. It was a stupid fighting stance, but effective in preventing the Gamorrean from casually grabbing Poe. "I will give you nothing if you harm him!"

Poe looked up at him with no small degree of surprise that Hux would take this odd gallantry this far. The Gamorrean stopped and grunted that they would make fine provisions. Poe decided not to translate that any more than he had the other references to their edibility. The boar didn't seem to be joking and no one else was laughing about it, either.

Hux said, "I am adding to my requirements that we both get medical care."

The leader laughed. "No. It's too easy to kill you." She made a gesture at the boar.

Hux spoke fast. "Do you want to know the First Order's plans to take down the Grand Council of the Hutts?"

There was a silence that spoke to their interest. The Gamorrean moved first, backing off entirely. Finally, the leader said, "How do you know that?"

"I transmitted the communications myself."

"How much do you know about it?"

"Everything. Timetable, ships and equipment involved, names of commanders, and priority of targets. It's _soon_ , so unless you're certain none of your allies here would let it be known that you passed on the chance to prevent such an attack, he'd better see the inside of your medbay. Fast."

The leader looked around at her people. The Rylothian said, "I would never tell anyone."

"That's not the point," the leader said, shaking her head. "Fine. Get him to medbay. You, give us the information."

"No. I go with him. And you get the information after his treatment and after we've arrived at Terrelia."

"How soon is soon?"

"Has it happened yet?"

"No."

"Soon then."

One of the others said, "I think he's been spaced too long. The First Order's shit."

The leader shrugged. "We're losing a few medical supplies and fuel in exchange for a maybe. Might as well see. The shuttle didn't have anything else useful in it."

"We could squeeze him for more," the Rylothian suggested.

"How do we know it would be true?" the other female human asked back. They went on talking amongst themselves.

Hux bent to Poe and shifted him upright. "I'm going to try to help you walk. Can you put your arm over my shoulders?"

Poe did and got his working foot under him to help push him erect. It felt bizarre to not be able to reach the ground with his right foot. "How is it you could bring me back from the dead but not save my foot?"

"People often offer to lend me a hand, but none have ever given me a foot." Hux locked his other arm around Poe's waist. He looked to the Gamorrean. "Lead the way."

It turned, opening the door and taking them down two short halls to a dingy-looking room that had two outdated medical stations. One was significantly grubbier than the other. Hux put Poe in that one.

"Why do I get the dirty one?"

"Because you're a dirty Rebel and you deserve it." Despite the banter, Hux looked pale and gasping. His arm, now that it was no longer busy holding Poe, was firmly clamped to his side.

Poe snorted, but he gave Hux an assessing look. The Gamorrean grunted a long string of warnings to them not to get into things they shouldn't and then left them. The door slid shut behind it.

"What was all that about?" Hux asked.

Poe shrugged. "Sloppy security. He said to stay put." He touched at his face, scraping away some of the drying blood from his nose.

"Hm." Hux turned on the diagnostic equipment and struggled to get it into position over Poe. The med droid whirred to life and scooted over to assist. Lights came on and screens lit up. A few flickered.

"You think this thing is safe?" Poe asked.

"Well … I picked this one because they've obviously been using it. Not so much the other." Hux moved off to a sink. He was using both hands now and standing straighter.

"Yeah, that makes sense." Poe's attention was drawn to the droid turning his left arm to get a look at the wounds and crusted blood there. A bar of light passed over his body length-wise and then across. The screen over him, which was tilted so he could see it this time, started listing symptoms and a disturbing range of conditions, not all of which were within the treatment capabilities of this unit. Fortunately, the acute damages were treatable. To start with the droid scrubbed off his arm, applied disinfectants, and then a skin sealant.

"Here." Hux turned Poe's chin with a finger and began cleaning his face for the second (or maybe third) time that day.

Poe gave him a slow smile. "You know, when you do this, I get to just stare at you. You have really pretty eyes."

"You are so filthy it hurts to look at you."

"Right," Poe nodded a tiny bit as Hux wiped blood off him very carefully because the side of his face was swollen and potentially, there were broken bones. "That's why you're leaning over me doing this personally instead of letting the droid do it." The med droid had moved off to his feet.

"Any personal interest would be highly inappropriate in the current situation."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too." Poe snaked his right hand between them, then up and hooked it around the back of Hux's neck. There was definitely time for Hux to notice and do something about it, but he didn't. Poe pulled him down because he really couldn't lift himself up with his neck wrenched as it had been. Hux didn't fight it. Poe kissed him when he was close enough. Very delicately, and Hux let him, doing nothing at first and then kissing back just as gently. Hux's lips were soft, unskilled, and tentative. Then he pulled away, leaving Poe smiling up at him.

"Very, very inappropriate." Hux sighed. He grimaced like he was in pain and then went back to wiping, finishing the job.

"Thank you for saving my life back there," Poe said. "I don't know what's going on with you, but I can appreciate what you're doing without that. I really do."

"I would like to have a witty comeback, but I don't. Mainly I just didn't want them to take something I've thought of as mine. I went to a lot of trouble to get you alive after a considerable number of second thoughts and … doubts. You've been much easier to deal with than I'd expected."

"I'm yours, huh?"

Hux rolled his eyes and backed off. "Now that you mention it, it's ridiculous." Hux hoisted himself onto the other table and tried to get it to work. The diagnostics would run, but the droid wouldn't activate.

"Maybe," Poe allowed. "But it's not wrong." The med droid had finished whatever treatments it deemed necessary on Poe's foot and ankle. With Hux out of the way, it turned to Poe's face.

"Of course it's wrong, Poe. We're from opposite sides."

"Last I heard, I'd become First Order property. I have a serial number and everything."

Hux rebooted the system, making another stab at getting the droid on his side to activate. "In the First Order, oaths of loyalty and service end when you die. Does the same apply to the Resistance?"

Poe thought about that. "I didn't, uh, we don't give oaths or anything when we join up. We just join. We can resign whenever we want. What did you have in mind?" The med droid began some kind of treatment. A warm, bright light bathed the side of his head. It hurt his eyes. He squinted.

Hux had his back to him. "Oh, well, if you had an oath like that, then someone who had gone through what you had could honorably change sides, duty discharged."

"Ah. And you?"

"If I didn't die, then it wouldn't apply."

"But that doesn't matter. They wouldn't take you even if you showed up." Hux turned and looked at Poe. Whatever the droid was doing to Poe's skull was making it easier to think. "That shuttle came from some larger ship that left you abandoned out there, sabotaged so that … what? You'd die? Was that the plan?"

"Shut up, Poe." His voice was tired. He turned to continue working on the other med droid, having removed the front panel to reveal its innards.

"Just one more question, please."

"What?"

"How long was I out?"

"The good thing about the vacuum of space is that it's an excellent preservative, although if you freeze unevenly, well …" Hux gestured in the general direction of Poe's feet. He paused for a moment as if considering. "A month. Perhaps more."

"Oh kriff. I thought it had been brief. But no. There's no way. You did four other people. You had a firefight on that shuttle. You fixed it. I wasn't just … dead. I was space debris."

"You said it, not me – you're space trash."

Poe laughed abruptly and covered his face. The droid working on him made several frustrated beeps and noises, then guided his hand away from his face so it could begin with that area. The dull, concussed feeling was gone.

Hux went on, "There was no rescue for you, either, because you would have been dead when they came through. The Resistance would have done their scans and left."

"They didn't detect you?"

"You said only one more question. I answered one more question."

Poe said, "No. I can figure that one out on my own. You were dead, too, when they came through."

Hux smiled thinly in confirmation.

"We're both dead men." Poe hissed as a few more puzzle pieces fell together. He had a mostly coherent narrative as far as events went. What he was still missing was Hux's motivations.

"Are you in pain?" the med droid asked him. It paused in the reconstruction on his cheek.

"No," he told it. The one on Hux's side had lit up and announced it was going through a startup routine. Hux laid down carefully on the table. Poe asked, "Do you think that's safe?"

"You worry a lot about medical systems for someone who wouldn't be alive without one. I have two cracked ribs and I don't know how much time we'll be allowed in here."

"Why didn't you say something? About the ribs, I mean."

"You were unconscious right after it happened."

"You supported me the whole way in here!"

"What would you have me do instead? Walk on ahead and leave you to crawl behind me? I didn't want that beast to drop you on your head again!"

Poe growled.

"Are you in pain?" the med droid asked again in the same toneless manner.

"No. I just make a lot of noises when my weird First Order boyfriend annoys me."

"I'm not weird," Hux said defensively.

"Ha. You don't even deny the rest. That's like, a thing with you. It's a pattern."

Hux looked over at him with a sad, vulnerable expression, like he was at the very end of his rope. "Would you like me to deny the rest?"

Poe pursed his lips, trying to imagine the chain of events that might have led to Hux looking at him like that. That he couldn't imagine one didn't take away from seeing the way Hux was feeling. He remembered how Hux's voice had cracked back on the shuttle. "It's been a long month for you, hasn't it?"

"Yes."

Poe swallowed. "I'm sorry." He laid there quietly as the droid finished on his cheek, then addressed the misalignment of his spine. He brushed it off when it showed too much interest in the bruise on his penis. That was the least of his problems. To Hux, Poe said, "All of your information is out of date, including that deployment schedule around the jump spots."

"I know. I was bluffing."

"Kriff."

"Yes."

"That's why you need the ribs treated. Because you might not have anything valuable enough to them to keep us alive."

"Well, that, and they hurt."

"Yeah, I'll bet they do." Poe scratched at his scalp. It was itchy … and still disgusting. "You promised me a shower."

"I bring you back from the dead and all you can do is complain about your hair," Hux said with mock exasperation.

The door slid open and the leader walked in, followed by the same one who had been with her on the shuttle. She looked at Hux and immediately fired off a question. "Why Terrelia?" A beat later, she added in surprise, "The droid's working."

"Yes," Hux said. "I fixed it. I'm useful that way. In exchange, we get showers."

"What? Shut up." She bristled. Hux laid there and said nothing, looking at her levelly as the med droid on his side did the same skeletal modification on Hux's ribs that the one on Poe's side had done on his face. Poe kept his mouth shut, too.

The second in command finally said, "Big Sexy might stop talking about eating them if they didn't smell so much like corpses."

Hux's brow furrowed. "Big …?"

The leader asked, "Is it fixed for good? Or just for now?"

Hux moved on to her questions. "It's a very old model. I've bypassed a blown fuse. It might continue to work in that fashion for years. Or it might overload right now. It will last longer if you have a replacement fuse and install it. I could do that for you if it would improve relations between us."

"Nah." She frowned. "Tell me why Terrelia."

"Because they're routinely uncooperative with the First Order, but not so much so that I'll be shot on sight there. You can drop us off and be on your way without a paper trail. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"The First Order is shit."

Hux sat up, waving away the med droid so he could better focus on her. "You said that before. What do you mean?"

"I mean the First Order is shit. Flushed. Manure. Rot. Crapped out of the body of the galaxy and gone."

Poe sat up as well. "What? What happened to the Resistance?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. Don't care. First Order killed all their leaders and fell apart. Different ships are still around. Are some attacking the Hutts, or is that shit, too?"

"There was a plan," Hux said, obviously shaken. "I wasn't lying to you. But if there was a general dissolution, then that plan is unlikely to be carried out. What information is valuable to you? There may be other things I know."

She snorted and said to her subordinate, "You were right. Space 'em."

Poe had barely opened his mouth to object before Hux had launched himself off the med table and into her, his right hand pumping back and forth several times with a flash of metal extending from his fist. The second in command jumped back, making inarticulate sounds of surprise as she tried to pull her blaster while both Hux and her commander stumbled into her. The commander went down. Hux shoved a bloody knife into the second, slashing it downward across her abdomen.

He lost his footing as the body under him settled. There was a moment of the second in command staring at her opened belly in disbelief while Hux regained his balance. Hux shifted the knife to overhand and stabbed her three times in the chest before she fell.

"Uh …" Poe's eyes were as huge as the time Leia had woke from a coma to confront him in the middle of his mutiny. It had all happened so fast. "Kriffing hell."

Hux stood over the two corpses, panting. He leaned down and wiped off the blade of his knife. His hands were shaking, but the adrenaline dump from that assault had to be huge. He picked up the blaster, dropped it, and picked it up again. He carried it over to Poe and gave it to him, hands still shaking. "I'll get the other."

The med droid next to Poe said, "Your care is complete. Please move the next patient to the table."

Hux cleaned his knife again, this time on the leader, and then carefully replaced it in a scabbard up his sleeve. He relieved her body of its weapon. He turned and looked at Poe, who was still flabbergasted.

"I've been in a lot of combat, but I've never seen anything like that," Poe said.

"We have at least two more and that pig thing to worry about."

"It's a Gamorrean."

"Fine. Then I'll know what it is when I kill it." He turned to the droid behind Poe and said, "Droid! Your patient is missing a foot. Is there a hover chair here?"

"There is a standard rolling chair in the floor compartment near the wall." The droid pointed. Hux went, pulled out what amounted to a mechanized wheel chair, and presented it for Poe's use. Poe slid off the table and into the seat, blaster across his lap. Hux pulled the leader's body out of the way of the door.

The med droid repeated, "Please move the next patient to the table."

Hux told it, "These are not patients. They are corpses. Do not provide them with medical care."

"Thank you," the droid said.

"Power down," Hux told it.

"Thank you," the droid repeated, following directions. The lights went out on it. Hux repeated this on the other med droid.

"What are we going to do?" Poe asked. "Kill everyone on board and fly to Terrelia?"

Hux sighed and looked distant. "Yes to the first part. Can you fly this thing?"

Poe looked around. "I'm not sure what it is, but yeah, probably. Now that I'm not completely messed up."

Hux nodded. "Good. Then let's go."

It was shockingly easy to kill the other human and the Rylothian members of the crew, who had no inkling of what had happened in the med bay. Or rather, it was easy for Poe to roll along behind Hux as Hux did it with a couple well-placed shots. The Gamorrean, on the other hand, took a blaster bolt to the back and kept running, it being large and thickly armored enough that a blaster pistol wouldn't kill it. Poe and Hux retreated inside the bridge and sealed the blast doors to keep it out.

Poe transferred himself to the pilot's chair and checked the instrumentation.

"Take us to wherever the Resistance is," Hux said.

"What about Terrelia?"

"I doubt the Resistance has a presence there. But we have an upset, what did you call him? A Gamorrean?" Poe nodded. Hux went on, "Loose in the rest of the ship. We can't exit without it getting off ahead of us and setting the authorities on us. Terrelian port officials might disrespect the First Order, but they're not going to look the other way for murder or mutiny or whatever that thing tells them we did. We can't go out there and clean up the scene without giving that creature a chance at charging us. One blow from it would do in either of us and we've already seen the blasters won't stop it."

Poe had to nod at that. "Okay, good points. So, uh, do you know where the Resistance is these days?"

Hux scoffed. "No idea. You?"

Poe chewed at his lower lip and shook his head, giving Hux his sweetest look. He was deeply amused that they'd come this far only to not know where to go.

Hux said, "We have come to that point you mentioned earlier."

"Which point was that, babe?"

"Don't call me that." Hux looked annoyed and flustered by the name. "It is the point where I trust you. Pick wherever you want to go, wherever you think wise, and take us there."

"You sure I can't call you that?"

"I suppose you _can_ , but I don't like it."

"Maybe it's not about what you like."

"Are you saying my preferences don't mean anything to you?"

"I never said that," Poe grinned, leaning back. "They mean a lot. They mean so much that I want to give you everything you need."

"Like you would an infant?"

Poe nodded, still smiling. "I can't believe I'm negotiating with the former leader of the First Order about which pet names I get to call him."

Hux scoffed. "If you want to give me what I need, then get us somewhere safer than wherever it is we are."

Feeling quite smug about having won the disagreement, Poe turned to the controls. "Well, I do have 'an' idea, so let's go with that and hope for the best." He typed in coordinates, checked the systems, and activated the hyperdrive. The ship lurched forward. The stars streamed by in the viewport.

Hux, who had been watching him closely, said, "That's it?"

"What?"

"That's all it took? To fly this thing? Really?" He looked offended. "I read the operating instructions on the shuttle. I thought I had to be missing something because it was too simple. It really is that easy? Why does anyone need trained pilots?!"

"Hey, hey," Poe said with half a laugh. "It's not that easy when you're flying combat. In an x-wing or a TIE fighter, little ship, super maneuverable, moving at speed, trying shoot other little ships that are also moving, while not getting shot yourself, or running into … anything? That's hard. Really hard, Hugs. Don't be talking down pilots. I'll fight you." His tone was teasing.

Hux took it in the spirit it was intended. "I didn't need to fly in combat! I just needed to …" Hux waved a hand in irritation.

"Yeah? You probably could have done just fine on your own. But you know what? Thank you saving my life anyway."

All of Hux's anger dissipated. He stared at Poe for a long moment, then exhaled heavily. "Fine. Yes," he said calmly, settling down in his chair and turning to face the streaking star field.

"You really think I'm worth it," Poe said quietly.

Hux started to say something, then didn't. He went back to staring forward.

"On shuttles and freighters, there's no magic to it," Poe said, deciding not to make any more of an issue of it than he already had. "They're flying bricks. The autopilot handles just about everything as long as you stay out of atmo. They can get a little tricky in storms or high winds."

Hux sighed. "I can't say I regret my mistake."

"Maybe it wasn't a mistake. Tell me – something I've been wondering about – you tried to bring back people from the First Order … first, right? Those three I saw in the shuttle?"

"Yes." Hux picked at some flaking blood on his pants.

"But then you switched to the Resistance. To C'ai. Then me."

"C'ai?"

"The Abednedo."

"Ah. Yes."

"Were you telling me the truth that you ran out of First Order guys to try that process on?"

"No. I don't recall saying anything of the sort."

Poe waited. When Hux didn't elaborate, he said, "I want to know what happened back there that made you think you'd gone wrong in your life up to that point."

Hux exhaled heavily.

"Get it off your chest, Hux. I'm not going to judge you. I'm going to listen."

Hux stared at the streaking stars. "It's going to be hours before we reach our destination, isn't it?"

Poe smiled. "Yep. Hours trapped here on the bridge with me. While I'm waiting to hear your story."

"It's not that exciting a story. You've already pieced together most of it. When the hyperbeam projection machine … failed, my location was shielded from the concussion and the radiation of the blast. As I have told you. That much was true. As you have discerned, I died a few minutes later from exposure, when the entire thing depressurized. I died just as you did."

Poe listened.

"A portion of the fleet came to the disaster site. They found no survivors. They did, however, find my body. I was brought onto the shuttle you woke on. I was revived without complications. Perhaps because they knew what they were doing. Perhaps because the nature of my death was well-suited to the procedure.

"Awake, I desired to return to my previous rank. But upon my death, my position had passed to another who was finding it easier to claim than to hold. She wanted my assistance in uniting the Order beneath her and was under the misapprehension that the mere reinstatement of my life put me in her debt. I declined the kind offer of serving her.

"A fight broke out. I killed her. I killed the people who had saved my life. Then I was overpowered and restrained. Her primary subordinate took some manner of pity or vengeance on me in setting my punishment as banishment rather than execution. The shuttle was damaged in a calculated fashion with the intention of leaving me alive long enough to regret my actions. Then they left. They had underestimated my ingenuity. Even if it took weeks to get the ship functional, it did function."

"Then you tried to revive Order people first."

"I did. The first one was unaffected. The next two revived briefly and died in agony. I do not know how much consciousness they achieved, but I hope none. They called out in their delirium and could not be soothed. I couldn't escape hearing them and I couldn't relieve their misery without giving up on them. It was their deaths that caused me to switch to the Resistance, because I did not have the stomach to inflict that on another member of my own side."

Hux looked over at Poe, who merely raised his brows. "Go on."

"Well, this is the part where I expect you will be rethinking your lack of judgment. I took up the Resistance members not out of a desire to switch sides, but out of squeamishness. I thought an alien would be easier to manage, emotionally. As would you, as a name and a face known to me and hated after what you did to Starkiller Base and the taunts over D'Qar." Hux shook his head slightly. "But Threnalli – that was the name on his flight suit – did not achieve even basic life signs. You did."

Hux sighed. "It was at that point I realized I was a fool. I had planned to perfect the process on the Resistance, kill whichever of you I had restored, and then wake a member of the Order. But after the amputation and … doing everything possible to make you survive and with you unconscious and defenseless for all of it … I knew I wouldn't have the fortitude for it. I still clung somewhat to the hope you'd be difficult and make it easy for me, but you proved intelligent and agreeable from the start."

"You know," Poe said, "everyone in the Resistance is that way. Just like everyone in the Order. Just people wanting to do the right thing. It's really interesting to hear the journey you took to get to that point, where you wanted to do the right thing, too."

"I didn't intend to have some epiphany about morality. I wanted to get back to some semblance of civilization and I thought I needed someone else's help for that. That's all it was."

"It was more than that."

"Now you know. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Poe smiled at him. He adjusted the environmental controls to make the room warm enough for his limited clothing, and settled back in the seat for the long flight.

Poe woke when they came out of hyperspace near Naboo. Beside him, Hux startled as well, picking up the blaster and looking around for enemies that weren't there. Poe told him, "It's all good, buddy. We made it. Now let's take a look at what else is …" He stopped speaking, looking at the third closest ship that had scrolled up on the screen. It was a star destroyer.

"Oh." Hux gave a hopeless chuckle. "This is about to become the worst day I've ever had."

Poe blinked at him. "You mean it wasn't already?"

Hux's laughter turned genuine, if a little hysterical.

A couple blinking lights and a new image brought Poe's attention back to the screens. "What's going on?" he asked no one in particular. Once upon a time, he would have been speaking to BB-8. Now, he supposed, it was to Hux. "Why is the star destroyer moving towards us? This thing I'm flying is practically a garbage scow." He tapped in a different course, looping them away from the warship. "They shouldn't care about us as long as we're not shooting at them!"

"They're hailing us," Hux said. Then his brow furrowed. "No. We're transmitting." He bent his attention to the communications panel, snarling at it and manipulating the equipment roughly.

"What are we transmitting?"

"A distress signal! I've cut it off, but it went out. No doubt the work of that Gameean."

"Gamorrean," Poe corrected automatically.

"Oh, thank you for that," Hux said archly. "I needed to know the proper name of the thing that wants to eat us and is arranging for us to be killed by the First Order!"

"I think its proper name was 'Big Sexy'."

"Yes, I heard that. It makes 'Kylo Ren' sound refreshingly normal."

Poe looked at the approaching ship, then at Hux. "I don't know where things are between you and the Order, but I need to know if I should put everything we've got into getting away."

"I killed the supreme leader and they left me to die of privation in the encroaching vacuum of space. What do you think?"

"Everything it is." Poe reached for the controls, just as the hail repeated. "See if you can distract them," he suggested.

"Slim chance of that working." Hux flipped the channel open and said sternly, "This is Supreme Leader Hux of the First Order. I order you to stand down and abandon your pursuit of this garbage scow this instant!"

Poe struggled not to crack up laughing. He sent the freighter wheeling away, pivoting to present the least surface area to the tractor beams that he could already feel dragging at the ship's paltry maneuverability. He cycled up the hyperdrive despite the rapidly shrinking chance they could use them to get away.

The speaker crackled. "Well … 'Hux', this is General Caluan Ematt of the Republic Navy. I order _you_ to stand down and abandon your escape attempt this instant."

"Wait, what?" Poe stared over at the communications panel. "Is that line open?" Hux nodded. Poe called out loud enough to reach the audio pickup, "Hey! This is Poe Dameron. Are you serious?"

"No," Hux said quietly. "He said he was Caluan Ematt."

Apparently, it wasn't quiet enough. "Yes. First name Deadly, last name Serious," General Ematt said. "We had a distress signal from your ship and a garbled message about murders, and now we have you jokers. We're bringing you into the hangar bay for inspection by the authority of the King of Naboo."

"Okay. Fine with me." Poe switched off the engines. "I really am Poe Dameron, though."

There was no answer, so Hux closed the channel.

"You gave up so easily," Hux observed.

"I know the guy. Big deal in the Resistance. That's his voice. I don't know what he's doing on a star destroyer, though."

"Being a general in the Republic Navy, apparently."

"Well, let's find out what that means," Poe said.

Shortly after they landed, the ramp went down and they could see the Gamorrean hustle out to excitedly inform the group there of the events on the ship. Hux helped Poe into the wheelchair. Poe said, "Ematt must have told people it was me. That's Rey and Finn down there. Maybe Kylo."

"And a half dozen others." Hux sighed. "I wish I could hide in the bilge tank."

"You could. We could fish you out later. It would mean a lot to me not to be the worse-smelling of the two of us."

"On second thought, you need my help getting down the ramp."

"You're just overflowing with helping me out," Poe said, opening the blast doors and then the bridge's regular door. "Come on. It's going to be fine. My friends are out there. We're safe now."

"Maybe you are." Hux held onto the back of the wheelchair as they went down the ramp. Even mechanized as it was, the angle might have been more than the gears and autobrakes could handle. The group assembled stared at them in shock.

They heard Finn mutter, "Is that … Is that really them? I think it is. _Both_ of them?"

Poe had a couple day's worth of beard going on and his hair was matted down haphazardly. He was also still dressed in a First Order regulation issue t-shirt and boxers, both stained and spattered with blood (all of it his as far as he knew). That he was missing a foot was obvious. Hux's hair was too long and he had less bristle. His plain uniform was black, but thoroughly dirty and spattered with blood as well (none of it Hux's, as far as Poe knew). The blaster that had been inelegantly tucked into his belt flew across the space to smack into Kylo Ren's palm. The one next to Poe's thigh in the wheelchair did not move.

Rey hurried forward as Hux moved off to the side. "Poe!" She looked a lot like she might want to hug him, but she settled for taking his hand. Her grip was firm and he held it in return like his life depended on it. "What happened to you? Did- Did-?" She looked down at his feet.

Finn came up next to her, along with one of the security people. "Poe, wow. I'm so glad you're alive! How did you survive that explosion? It was like a nova!"

In the background, the Gamorrean was loudly squealing to the officer leading the Republic security forces, telling them (again, from what Poe could discern) about them having killed the rest of the crew.

"I'm fine," Poe said. "It's fine. Really. We're okay." He was so relieved that he pulled Rey down so he could embrace her. He shut his eyes and shuddered, feeling a sudden wave of sympathy for how solicitous Hux had been … throughout their time together. "I want to hang onto you guys and never let go." He breathed out shakily. Finn put a hand on his shoulder.

"You smell strange," Rey said when she finally straightened.

"It's a smell of death," Kylo said, looking between Poe and Hux. "On both of them." He looked at Hux, who was standing stiffly erect, upper lip curled and glaring at Kylo. "How many people have you killed?"

"Billions," Hux sneered.

"Personally," Kylo clarified.

"Personal questions about me are none of your business."

A pair of security officers moved near Hux with handcuffs.

"No!" Poe said, disengaging himself from those around him. He wheeled over. "No. He saved my life. Twice. No, three times. Wait, four. Um … a lot." He waved at the hand cuffs and Poe's voice turned hard. "Get those away from him." He directed the chair between the guards and Hux.

"It was all for selfish reasons," Hux said just as stiffly as he'd spoken to Kylo. "You owe me nothing." He didn't look at Poe, restlessly eyeing those assembled instead.

"Tell me how you were being selfish when you told me to take us to the nearest Resistance base?" Poe demanded. "And while you're at it, explain what was selfish about you not letting me freeze to death when you knew you didn't need me? Or why you refused to cooperate until they," Poe gestured at the ship, "gave me medical care. How is any of that selfish, Hux?"

"You were my prisoner. You were only doing what I told you to."

"Okay, first off, most of that isn't anything I was doing," Poe said. "It was you! And second," he picked up his blaster by the barrel so there was no way anyone would think he was brandishing it, "you put this in my hand!"

"We were fighting or our lives, Poe," Hux snapped, finally looking at him. "That's not the case now. These are your friends. Go be with them!"

"I heard what you said about your oath. You weren't talking about me. You were talking about you. You've done your duty to the First Order. It's over. You're not going back to them. These are my friends. All of them. You included. Come on."

"You've known me for less than a day, Commander Dameron."

"Why are you trotting out a rank now, huh? You want me to resign?"

There was a murmur among the others.

"No," Hux said patiently. "I want you to get a thorough mental evaluation, and physical, before you make any hasty decisions. You have suffered a literally life-changing trauma and your sense of boundaries and … priorities have been changed to a point where you're nearly unrecognizable to yourself."

"Do you even hear yourself? You're talking about you!"

Hux bared his teeth at Poe and waved at the others. "These people are not going to evaluate me like you think, Poe! They're going to put me out an airlock assuming he," he gestured at Kylo Ren, "doesn't slice me in half! You need help! I'm beyond it."

"In the First Order, your service requirement ends at death, right? Well, in the Republic, your guilt for crimes ends at death, too. You died, Hux. They can't prosecute you."

"You can't prove I died!" Hux said. "All you have is my word. No one will believe that!"

"Died?" Kylo asked. Rey stepped over next to Kylo and murmured something quietly to him.

Poe gestured sharply to Kylo and Rey. "They sensed it the moment we walked off the ship!" Hux looked at the two uneasily. Poe pointed back at the garbage scow of a freighter they'd arrived in. "We have flight logs on that thing. It can be traced back to wherever that shuttle is. The revivification technology is still there. Do you know how much the Republic would like to get their hands on that? And you know how to operate it!"

"They could figure it out," Hux said slowly. He was thinking.

"It's not like flying a shuttle. None of them have been through it themselves."

"What are you guys talking about?" Finn asked.

Poe held up a finger to him. "I am turning this guy to the light if it's the last thing I do for the Rebellion. Give me a second."

Hux snorted. "That's preposterous! I will not join the Resistance!"

"I didn't say you had to. Join the galaxy. The Republic Navy. Whatever. Go join Kanjiklub for all I care. But don't leave me."

"Leave you?" Finn asked. Rey took Finn's arm and pulled him back wordlessly. Kylo waved at the security officers, who gave Poe and Hux more space.

"You're pathetic," Hux said to Poe, but it sounded disbelieving rather than disparaging. Hux was looking at Poe intently.

"Yeah, I am, and I want to get to know you. Now come here and hold my hand so I don't have to chase you around in this thing and look even more undignified."

Hux lifted his hand uneasily, looking from Poe to the others and back again. He took a step closer and offered his hand tentatively. Quietly, he told Poe, "You should not do this. They will distrust you forever on."

Poe took it gently at first, then held it more firmly. His voice soft, Poe said, "I'm going to do it anyway. Because you said I was yours. And you know something? You still owe me a shower. You _promised_ me a shower. Twice."

Hux glanced uneasily at their audience. They weren't so far away that they couldn't hear, despite the low voices Poe and Hux were using.

"A shower?" Finn said. Rey shushed him, but he was still basically gape-jawed.

Poe grinned. "Yeah, guys. It's like that," he said while not taking his eyes off Hux.

"We're on a star destroyer, Poe. They have showers here," Hux told him.

"You said you'd help me," Poe crooned at him. "You said you'd get me into it. You said you'd do my hair-"

"I did not!" Hux blushed and tried to snarl, but it was more like a twisted grin, like he was embarrassed and titillated.

"You're gunna." Poe's teeth pressed into his lower lip.

Hux opened his mouth, then shut it. He shifted uncomfortably. "I need an evaluation as well. You're right. There's no other sane explanation for this."

"Sure," Poe said reasonably. "You wouldn't want to do anything hasty here. Let's go get cleaned up. We can explain everything to my friends later. You said the point would come when you trusted me. You said that point was here. So trust me, Hux." He gestured at the others. "These people are not going to eat us, torture us, or space us. Let's get cleaned up, some food, some sleep, maybe I can get fitted for a prosthetic foot, and then we'll tell them how to bring people back from the dead."

Hux sighed. He looked down at the floor, then up at Poe with a puzzled look. He rubbed the hand he was holding. "You must be starving."

"I haven't eaten in a month, so, yeah. But let's get each other back into the land of the living."


End file.
